Salvadorans to walk 90-plus miles

People participate in a late-March procession to commemorate the 37th anniversary of the killing of Blessed Oscar Romero in San Salvador, El Salvador. RODRIGO SURA | EPA VIA CNS

SAN SALVADOR, El Savlador
— Salvadorans plan to walk more than 90 miles in three days to mark the
centennial of Blessed Oscar Romero's birth.

Participants will leave the Metropolitan Cathedral in San
Salvador Aug. 11 and are scheduled to arrive in Ciudad Barrios, the eastern
city where Blessed Romero was born, Aug. 13.

The pilgrimage, "Caminando hacia la cuna del Profeta"
("Walking toward the prophet's birthplace"), will go through four
dioceses — San Salvador, San Vicente, Santiago de Maria and San Miguel.

Blessed Romero was born Aug. 15, 1917, and the actual centennial
will be marked by a Mass at San Salvador's cathedral. Chilean Cardinal Ricardo
Ezzatti of Santiago, Pope Francis' special envoy to the celebration, will be
the main celebrant.

Masses also are scheduled in other parts of the country. In the
western Santa Ana Diocese, Archbishop Leon Kalenga Badikebele, apostolic nuncio
to El Salvador, will deliver the homily at a commemorative Mass Aug. 12, while
Salvadoran Cardinal Gregorio Rosa Chavez, a close friend of Blessed Romero, is
scheduled to give a presentation on the archbishop's life and work.

When it announced the activities July 31, the Salvadoran bishops'
conference stated that, as far back as three years ago, it "invited all
the worshippers, Salvadorans and of the world, to prepare for this centennial
to remember Blessed Romero as a man, a pastor and a martyr."

The murdered priest was beatified May 23, 2015, in San Salvador.
In a letter to the gathering, read before an estimated 250,000 people gathered
for the event, Pope Francis described Blessed Romero as "a voice that
continues to resonate."

Ordained April 4, 1942, in Rome, the Salvadoran religious leader
was appointed archbishop of San Salvador Feb. 23, 1977, and was gunned down
after Mass at a hospital chapel March 24, 1980, a day after a sermon in which
he called on Salvadoran soldiers to obey what he described as God's order and
stop carrying actions of repression.

The archbishop's March 30 funeral at the cathedral, attended by
more than 200,000 mourners, was interrupted by gunfire that left 30-50 people
dead.